iPad

New Photography Shortcuts Using ToolBox Pro

My love affair with Apple’s Shortcuts took a bit of a hit during the transition to iOS 13, but my fascination with this on-device development environment has been rekindled thanks to a new app called ToolBox Pro.

ToolBox Pro is a free iOS/iPadOS app that adds powerful new actions to Apple Shortcuts. An in-app purchase unlocks even more functionality. For the definitive write-up on this amazing app, see Federico Vitici’s exhaustive review on MacStories.

What I love about Shortcuts is that it lets me make genuinely useful tools that probably couldn’t sustain the overhead and/or dubious business model of being actual apps. I’ve shared a few of these free Shortcuts at the Prolost Store, and today I’m adding two new ones that take advantage of free features in ToolBox Pro.

Burst Slice

Burst Slice converts a photo burst from the iPhone/iPad camera into a tiled panorama. You control the size of the “slices,” which frames to use, and even the start and end crop of the slices.

I created Burst Slice before ToolBox Pro was available, but the experience wasn’t great, because Shortcuts can’t show you an image and a menu at the same time. ToolBoxPro allowed me to create a simple, visual interface to adjust the many parameters of this fun and useful tool.

Pano Man

Pano Man creates tiled panoramas for Instagram that can include multiple images. It uses that same visual UI functionality to give you pushbutton control over the padding, spacing, and cropping of the tiles.

I hope you find these tools useful. I welcome any feedback on them, and am always happy to see examples of them in use!

The Return of Noir and Plastic Bullet for iOS

In the early days of the iPhone, I worked with Red Giant to bring you two photo apps, Plastic Bullet, and Noir.

Just press the button and pick the one you like.

Just press the button and pick the one you like.

In a world overpopulated with photo “filter” apps, Plastic Bullet is still unique in that it runs a complete photographic simulation on your images. The light leaks and vignettes feel like an organic part of your photos. And the secret formula is different every time, so you get infinite variety, all at the touch of just one button.

We waited long enough that skeuomorphism is cool again.

We waited long enough that skeuomorphism is cool again.

Noir transforms your photos into rich black and white, with beautiful, dramatic lighting that you control with a customizable vignette.

Each of these two apps was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. People liked them a whole lot.

Then a terrible thing happened. Despite their popularity, these apps became unwieldy and then impossible for Red Giant to sustain. New OS version and new device sizes came along and ultimately left us in the dust.

But we never forgot these apps, and we’ve finally figured out how to bring them back. Red Giant co-founder Drew Little has create a new company called Moment Park to rebuild these and other beloved apps in a smart, sustainable way. And today, they are both once again available on the iTunes App Store, as universal versions for iPhone and iPad.

If you already own them, these are free updates.

Share your results with hashtags #plasticbullet and #noirphoto, and we may contact you about featuring them!